166 SEASON 1874-75. 



as soon as the eggs had ceased to adhere to the dish, I rinsed them 

 thoroughly and packed in sphagnum moss. Total, 880 ova. 



The end was melancholy in the extreme. The eggs were placed 

 in the lowest slate tray at Middlethird. On November 15th they 

 are noted in the book as " going on well," but the tray froze solid 

 on December 30th. On January 3d the trays were thawed out, 

 but those eggs in the bottom slate tray, which had been frozen 

 completely solid, were entirely lost. These were Experiment 6, 

 which up to this date had done very well, the eye being 

 developed, and not a single bad egg having been picked out. 

 This experiment proved that the ova is not affected by the juices 

 in the body of a trout, however copious, as it is by water, for I 

 have frequently found that a short immersion in water before 

 impregnation renders the ova barren. 



Experiment 7. 



The next experiment was commenced on November 26th. When 

 I netted the burn in front of Touch House for sea-trout, I took 10 : 

 5 males and 5 females. The first fish was a male, nearly spent ; 

 I returned him at once to the water. The next was a female, and 

 I spawned her, milting with a small burn-trout male. These I 

 placed in the third slate tray at Middlethird. Total, 253. 



One egg hatched on March 20th, and 5 more on the 21st. On 

 the 27th they had all hatched out, but most of the yolk-sacs were 

 round, and the embryos generally puny. They were 121 days in 

 incubating, a very long time, even considering the frozen slate tray 

 in the beginning of the year. On the evening of the 20th March 

 I made the following note, and subsequent experience has shown 

 I was very near the mark : " Experiment 7 shows no symptom of 

 any more hatching, but having been in a lower tray, the water 

 may have been a fraction colder ; however, I am inclined to think 

 that the true explanation is l in the milt being taken from a very 

 small burn-trout (therefore probably a young one). For the first 

 six weeks these eggs were in the same tray as Experiment 9, and 

 latterly the temperature of the air has nearly approached that of 



1 Imperfect impregnation. 



